White on White Elegance

In my Online Card Class today the style we were looking at is Classic & Elegant.  This would be my style all the way.  Cutesy is definitely not my style although I am hoping to learn a bit of that so I can send cute cards to my boys who love getting cards from their Mimi.

This particular class was taught by Debby Hughes of Lime Doodle Design.  I'm a huge fan of her work.  In fact, I pretty much follow the blogs of all of our teachers so far and many of the teachers that will be coming over the course of the class this month.  This card is very much modeled after the one that Debby taught us today.  I have different dies than she does, but it's the same type of style from her class. The poinsettia is a Memory Box Die that I got at the Tulsa Scrapbook Convention in August.  The other set of dies are Simon Says Stamp Exclusive Dies designed by Kristina Werner.

This card took some time but it was pretty simple as long as I didn't try to rush myself.  I had to think about how and with what dies I would try to mimic Debby's style with my own design.

I started with a 4.25 x 5.5 inch piece of Bazzill Marshmallow for the front panel that I treated with some mists of Tsukineko Clear Shimmer Spray.  White on white can be tricky and I wanted to give my card a little extra oomph!

This card was pretty simple once I had all the elements selected. I used a T-Ruler to make a pencil line about two thirds of the way down the card front and from side to side.  Then I carefully taped the poinsettia die onto that panel using the pencil line as my guide and ran it through my Cuttlebug Machine using my precision plate.  I was very careful when I did this because there are so many intricate pieces you can lose track of when you are taking the die cuts out of the die.  I kept the cutting sandwich together and carried it to my work area before taking the top cutting plate off and taking the pieces out.

Then I lined the same die up on a piece of gold glitter card stock and cut it again, keeping all the pieces inside again so I would not lose any of the pieces I was going to inlay.  While I was already cutting, I went ahead and cut the "Christmas Blessings" die for my greeting, being careful not to lose the "i's" from it.

To assemble my card, I made another pencil line on the card front to be my guide for lining up the die cut.  I attached the white cut piece along that line and adhered it with Ranger Multi Medium Matte.  Then I inlaid all of the pieces that I wanted to be gold using Multi Medium Matte again.  I accented with a few faceted gold enamel dots and ran my gold ink just along the edge of the front panel in a very narrow line to differentiate between the card base and the front panel.  I would have liked to die cut the panel but none of my dies are big enough to not cut the greeting off at the end.  So I rolled with it.

There's nothing out of the ordinary here but I think it made a gorgeous card and my husband really likes it as well.  I hope you enjoyed this card.  If you stop by, I'd love for you to comment!

Online Card Class - Holiday Style

You all probably remember a couple of months ago when I took an online class called "Watercolor For Card Makers".  For the next few weeks I am taking another fantastic class through Online Card Classes called "Holiday Style" and it will feature many different styles of cards for the upcoming season. Today's card is "Clean and Simple" style.



I started by creating my card bases from 100# Bazzill Marshmallow.  These are 4.25 x 5.5 top folding cards.  Next I used a piece of 2 inch wide Post-It Tape to create a diagonal mask on the lower third of my card front.  I used the same piece for each of the cards and I will use it many more times and wear all the "sticky" out before I throw it away.  You could also use a couple of Post-It Notes if that is what you have.  Additionally I used a piece of painters tape on the top end to keep the panel in place on my craft mat while I did my ink blending with a Tim Holtz Mini Ink Blending Tool.  I don't use a clean pad for each color of ink that I have, only one for each color family; blues, reds, greens, etc.  My only exception might be for any pastel varieties of color but so far, I haven't needed one for pastels.  I used Simon Says Stamp Ink in Lipstick Red, with Stampin' Up's Rich Razzleberry and Pacific Point inks.  After I colored that portion of my card I misted each with my solution of Perfect Pearls and water that I keep in a little spritzer bottle, but before removing the mask.  You can buy little mister bottles at Simon Says Stamp or use one that is empty from another kind or type of product or you can buy Perfect Pearls Glimmer Spray ready to go.



I created the diagonal lines by scoring that section of my card front at 1/2 inch increments all the way up.  You make the first line by scoring on the top of the card.  Then flip it over, make the score line again in the same place and now the line will be raised on the front.  All of the additional lines will also appear raised on the front.  I couldn't have done this very well without my Score Pal.  Simon Says Stamp has the Martha Stewart Mini Score Board if you need one.  I've had my Score Pal for several years and it is actually a "Score Pal" brand.  If I didn't already have one, I would buy the mini because it takes a lot less space to store it.



Once you complete the score lines, you can stamp your sentiment on the front and finish it in whichever method you would like.  I used Simon Says Stamp Super Fine Detail Gold Embossing Powder and Fine Detail Silver Embossing Powder with the Simon Says Stamp Big Scripty Greetings - Holiday Stamp Set for both.  You could use a die cut if you wanted and I have a Christmas Blessings die cut that I plan to use in the future.

I loved the simplicity of this card design but I had to add my own little spin on it of course.  For the red card, I stayed true to the design of the class, but for the other two I put a strip of glitter paper that I pulled from my scraps along the diagonal.  You could use whatever width you want.  I actually would have like a skinny little strip on the red card, but I had already adhered everything by the time I thought of it.  I sort my paper scraps by color family so I usually know what I have in my scraps and I didn't need much for this card.  *Ü*

I cut the Poinsettia Leaves and Berries from the same Bazzill Marshmallow Card Stock.  The dies are from Spellbinders so they cut and emboss in one pass if you use the metal shim and/or the embossing pad.  I also did ink blending on the leaves in Simon Says Stamp Beanstalk Green and Stampin' Up Garden Green. For the berries, I used the Lipstick Red with several layers of color and Blackberry Bliss for the purple ones. Once I had everything adhered, I went over the berries with my Wink of Stella Clear Glitter Bush Pen and then put a coat of Glossy Accents on the top of each berry for the final touch. 

These were super fast cards to put together and I didn't need a lot of different papers or special supplies.  I already had everything I needed to make this "Clean and Simple" card.  I really love the look of the blended inks using the Tim Holtz Mini Ink Blending Tool.   The more layers you add deepens the intensity of the color. While I like the shimmer from the Perfect Pearls Solution, I also really like the card well enough not to use it on other cards I might make using this design. 

Thanks for stopping by!  Feel free to leave a comment if you like because I read every single one.